Abstract
The potential contribution of nutritionally fortified foods to the improvement of public health has been recognized internationally; however, the extent of people's preferences for functional foods and the influence of information intervention on consumers' acceptance and selection of nutritious foods have not been comprehensively studied in China. The main purposes of this study are to assess Chinese consumers' perceptions towards nutritionally fortified eggs and to explore the ways in which information about the health benefits and the international market status quo of functional eggs impacts Chinese consumers' preferences and their willingness to pay (WTP) for nutritional fortification. Discrete choice experiments were used to elicit the preferences of 740 egg consumers from four cities in China, and a mixed logit model subsequently utilized to interpret the results. It was found that the provision of comprehensive information regarding the health benefits of trace elements and unsaturated fatty acids, as well as insight into the current market status quo, significantly improved participants' preferences and their WTP for functional eggs. Furthermore, the heterogeneous effects of demographic and sociocultural factors on consumers' treatment of this information were explored. It was found that the study participants with children and those with prior purchase experience exhibited a relatively stronger response to the information, while those who had expressed trust in the human health benefits of the nutritional content of functional eggs were not as sensitive as expected to the additional information. Therefore, if the government and enterprises design appropriate information treatment and nudging methods according to the current consumption characteristics of nutritionally fortified eggs, this will help to improve consumers' purchase confidence in the health efficacy of functional food and play a positive role in promoting people's healthy food consumption.